Dunsmuir council faces civil suit

Tuesday

Jan 15, 2013 at 2:12 PMJan 15, 2013 at 2:16 PM

In the four days since its commencement, the civil case Peter Arth, Jr. vs. Chris Raine, et al. has featured four members of the current Dunsmuir City Council and allegations of unlawfulness, discrimination and conspiracy.

David Smith

In the four days since its commencement, the civil case Peter Arth, Jr. vs. Chris Raine, et al. has featured four members of the current Dunsmuir City Council and allegations of unlawfulness, discrimination and conspiracy.

The case – which follows years of discontent over water issues and political processes in the south Siskiyou town – calls for a number of judicial actions, including a directive to move forward with improvements to the city’s ailing water system and invalidation of a vote alleged to have occurred under a conflict of interest.

Arth is a former councilmember and mayor of Dunsmuir recalled in a 2010 election, and is named alongside “the public generally” in the suit. The four causes of action identified by the petitioner in the suit allege that the respondents – councilmembers Chris Raine, Diane Dolf, Nick Mitchell and former councilmember Arlis Steele – violated the Brown Act, the Fair Political Reform Act of 1974, common law conflict of interest stipulations and public office definitions related to wasteful actions or inactions.

From Jan. 7 through Jan. 10 Judge Arjuna T. Saraydarian reviewed evidence in the case in order to determine which causes of action would be considered, and whether or not the respondents’ request for a jury trial would be granted. Those four days revealed evidence related to the four causes of action, and included the testimony of current city council member Ed Steele, Dunsmuir Fire Chief Daniel Padilla and a host of others as Arth’s lawyer David Hicks set up the petitioner’s case.

By the end of the day Thursday, Saraydarian had heard arguments from both Hicks and the respondents’ lawyer James Wyatt in preparation for his decision on the matters that the court, and possibly a jury, would hear. The evidence focused on votes to rescind staged water rate increases, an affirmation of a settlement agreement on a suit against the city in which the respondents were plaintiffs and the necessity of improvements to Dunsmuir’s water system.

Hicks suggested during the argument period that the respondents in the case have failed to rectify Dunsmuir’s water system issues in a concerted effort to benefit themselves to the detriment of the people of Dunsmuir. Referencing the days of testimony offered to the court, he stated that Arth’s case has demonstrated that the respondents, in whole or in part, had violated open meeting laws and laws governing the declaration of conflicts of interest, going so far as to claim that some of the respondents had violated the law in their respective actions.

Wyatt, whose clients ran in a slate emboldened by the group Citizens For a Better Dunsmuir, urged Saraydarian to consider the weight of laws dictating the right to trial by jury with regard to the causes of action. In addition, he argued that the causes of action have been unclear and that the court has no jurisdiction to order the city of Dunsmuir to take an action when the city is not named in the suit. Wyatt also took issue with what he believed was an overall lack of specificity with regard to actions of the council and evidence backing the four causes of action.

Today the court will hear further clarifications on arguments before Saraydarian makes his decision on how to proceed in the case.